This project was inspired by Miranda July‘s We Think Alone and mail art. AOI e-mail collaboration began September 2013 and was completed January 31st, 2014. Using text, image, video, sound, or a mixture of two or more, 17 participants — both local and nationally based – responded to an e-mail they received that was created by the previous participant. Below, each participant is organized into numerical order — indicating the order in which they participated and who created what piece, along with their bio [bio’s are found on the main Sarasota Visual Arts site].

The exciting thing about collaborating in this manner is you do not know who the other artists are and you have no idea who’s work you’ll get to respond to. I was given Memo a audio piece by Regan Stacey. While walking into work that day the sun was shinning brilliantly, the sky was so blue, and the trees outside were such a bright vibrant orange; I thought, “The leaves could fall of any day now, how can I capture this moment?” Then I received Stacy’s piece and all I could think about was the beautiful vibrant orange trees. I grabbed a gopro, attached it to my head, and walked circles around the trees. It is great because some of my students stopped to see what I was so excitedly infacuated with, “The trees, look!”

Now that the project has been posted I now see what Jeremy Fisher did in response to my video. I love it, and can recognize fragments of my work but it is entirely his own piece. I sat for a long watching the stillness of the foreground as the background moved just right with the audio, waiting and watching to see if the small deer would also move but I am glad it did not.

It is interesting when viewed as a whole you can see bits and pieces from everyone’s work, but no one knew what the other one was doing. There is something beautiful in common consciousness. I don’t think all of the pieces totally work together but there is a point where they all touch somewhere, that I find interesting. It is always great to be encourage to make things outside of your normal art practice. I talked with both Nicole Shift and Ben Piwowarand they both said that they had fun working on something they might not have done otherwise. It was fun to hear Ben explain his process of taking the original image he was given to respond to, and his reasoning for making certain decisions that all rotated around ‘having fun with it & messing around.’ I loved hearing how Nicole took parts of pieces she had worked on in the past and brought them back to life in this project.

I’m so glad to have been able to be a part of this project and look forward to participating in more like it in the future.